The Memory of Things That Never Were
by flowerofsin
Summary: AU post-Cold Blood. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely.


Title: The Memory of Things That Never Were

Fandom: Doctor Who

Characters: Eleven & Rory

Rating: PG

Word Count: 1,209

Summary: AU post-_Cold Blood_. Nothing is ever forgotten, not completely.

"You're doing it again," Rory noted from across the console.

"Doing what again?" the Doctor asked, making a point of not looking in his direction, his gaze on the panel before him and his hands that danced from one knob to the other.

"You're staring at me when you think I'm not looking," he told him. "You've been doing it ever since we left. Is something wrong?"

The Doctor's hands paused on the controls for a moment before he made his way around the console, striding up to Rory quickly enough to make the man draw back. "That's a good enough question, I suppose," he said, his eyes scanning Rory's face as if searching for something. "_Is_ something wrong?"

"What?" Rory asked, taken aback and unnerved somehow by the probing look in the Doctor's eyes. "No, nothing." He shook his head as he frowned faintly. "I mean, not really. I'm still just a little wound up, I suppose, what with narrowly avoiding a war and all. I'm fine," he insisted.

"Ah, that's good then, isn't it?" the Doctor responded, pausing just a moment before returning to the console.

Rory's eyes followed his form and for a moment he thought he saw-

_A faceless girl with a scarf around her neck and fire in her hair trots up to the Doctor at the console. She speaks animatedly to him before she turns-_

Rory blinked as if to clear his vision, momentarily confused. After he'd gotten his bearings again, he followed the Doctor over, trying to shake a strange feeling of unease, as if he were missing something. As if the Doctor was hiding something. Maybe both. "So, where are we off to now?"

The Doctor eyed him for a moment with a faint smile. "Another good question. Where would you like to go?"

Rory laughed almost nervously. "Oh, I don't know. Anywhere's fine, I suppose. Wherever two blokes roaming around the universe would go," he answered with a smirk.

"Yeah," the Doctor said with less enthusiasm, a flashing light on the panel suddenly very interesting. "Two blokes."

But Rory didn't catch the Doctor's tone of voice as he turned away. His gaze was drawn inexplicably toward the closed doors of the TARDIS, a frown forming on his face. That sense of missing something was back ten-fold, so he tried to concentrate, almost catching the image of-

_His hands scrabble at the lock, but he can't get the door to budge. He runs to the console where the Doctor is setting the TARDIS' controls, and his fists bunch in the man's jacket as he screams-_

An odd feeling coming over him, he rubbed at the back of his neck. He turned, sure that he felt the weight of the Doctor's stare on his back, but the Doctor's eyes were still on the console. After a few moments, the Doctor told him over his shoulder where they were off to, but Rory's attention was elsewhere, on the movement of the rotor and the whirr of the TARDIS as it dematerialized, the sound of it leaving him inexplicably cold.

xxxxxxxxxxx

Rory sat on a bench by the window in a small room of a building in Earth's past, a feeling setting like lead in his gut. Absently, he heard voices from the room down the hall. It was summer, but he shivered intermittently. He wasn't sure how long he'd sat there staring at his clasped hands in his lap before the Doctor walked in, hovering above him a moment then taking a seat next to him on the bench.

"You did well in there, you know."

"Not well enough," Rory answered, meeting the other man's eyes briefly. "He still ended up dying."

"But you made him more comfortable in his last moments," the Doctor countered. "Sometimes, that's all you can do. And sometimes, that's even enough."

They sat there in silence for a few moments before Rory broke it. "It's not like I haven't seen people die before," he told him. "You see a lot of that in my line of work. It's just that… his wife, the look on her face. She seemed to feel so helpless, like she wanted to save him but all she could do was watch as-

_He yells someone's name. Her face is a pale blur, but he knows that her eyes are staring up into nothing. His hands clutch at her jacket as his head falls to rest on her still form. Then from the corner of his eye, there's bright light, beautiful and horrible as its tendrils creep, and now the Doctor's arms are around him, a steel trap that can't be escaped, and he's pulling-_

The Doctor shifted closer, noting Rory's anguished face and the hand that he raised to try to cover it. His hand hovered above Rory briefly before it settled onto his back with stroking movements. "Rory, are you alright?"

Rory pulled his hand away to gaze at the dampness of his palm with confusion. He swiped at his eyes to find a trickle of tears that all too soon became a flood. "I'm crying, but it's not for him, I can _feel_ it. I don't understand. Doctor, it… it hurts but I-" Words fail him as his chest started to ache and his body began to tremble. The Doctor reached out to grasp his shoulders, gently turning his body to face him while wearing an expression Rory had seen before when-

_The Doctor's face before his becomes a blur as he stares at the man through his tears. The Time Lord's hands grip his jacket almost desperately and then his face, anguished eyes boring into his, his voice pleading with Rory to remember-_

Rory grasped at the fleeting glimpse, but he was soon distracted by the Doctor's hand rising to his cheek, his eyes old and knowing as he gazed into his.

"Rory," the Doctor began almost carefully, his face looming close, "Events can be triggers for things we think we've forgotten, for things that seem like they never were, but are. Because nothing's ever completely forgotten, not really. There are always traces left, if only flashes and fleeting visions, and if we hold onto them, there's a chance, Rory. A chance of the things that were lost to come back to us."

Rory stared into the Doctor's eyes which suddenly seemed dark and vast, and at the corner of his mind something tugged - _a girl with red hair standing in the light as she holds his hand-_ but on its heels followed such immense pain that his mind recoiled from it, the fragment falling back into the depths of the forgotten. Uncomfortable suddenly for reasons he couldn't name, Rory pulled away, trying to shrug off the awkwardness he felt at the Doctor looming so close with such intensity about him. Rory cracked a smile despite the odd feeling in his gut as he wiped at his face.

"What must you think of me, breaking down like this? It's not like I even knew the man at all. I just-"

"It's alright," the Doctor told him as he closed the distance between them again to place a hand on his shoulder, his eyes gentle and sad. "I understand."

End


End file.
